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Documentation Index

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Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

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Dhal

Dhal is an app-native WAF, bot-defense, policy-control, and request-security middleware for Node.js applications. It runs inside the application request path and provides deterministic controls such as IP allow/block lists, CIDR matching, rate limiting, route-aware policies, attack signatures, IP reputation checks, bot detection, credential-stuffing signals, honeypot canaries, webhooks, OpenTelemetry hooks, CI checks, false-positive replay, config presets, runtime safety controls, and AI-assisted autosetup. 
npm install @rokadhq/dhal
npx dhal init

import express from "express";
import { dhal } from "@rokadhq/dhal/express";

const app = express();

app.use(express.json({ limit: "1mb" }));
app.use(dhal());

app.get("/", (_req, res) => {
  res.json({ ok: true });
});

app.listen(3000);

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Naming

Dhal uses three different names intentionally:
SurfaceValue
ProductDhal
npm package@rokadhq/dhal
CLIdhal
Config filedhal.json
Use @rokadhq/dhal for install and imports. Use dhal only for the CLI command and dhal.json config file.

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What Dhal is

Dhal protects the application request layer. It sees information that edge and network tools often do not: normalized route, tenant ID, API key ID, user ID, login failure outcomes, app-specific payload expectations, and route-specific policy.

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What Dhal is not

Dhal is not a replacement for Cloudflare, AWS WAF, nginx, Envoy, platform firewalls, or DDoS protection. It complements those layers by adding app-native policy and telemetry.

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v0.11 alpha-public posture

Dhal 0.11.0-alpha.0 is built for public alpha usage. It includes runtime safety controls, health/preflight bypasses, privacy-first redaction, dhal doctor, dhal rules, and redacted dhal report output. During alpha:
  • pin exact versions;
  • start in monitor mode;
  • move specific routes to block after reviewing events;
  • use dhal replay for false-positive regression tests;
  • use dhal report when opening issues.

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Next steps